EMC continues to prove that it can be as well known for its storage software offerings as it is for its hardware by winning the ARC award for the third year in a row.

EMC's first-place showing was a strong endorsement of the company's channel relationships, given the large margin between it and its top storage software competitors.

Rob Emsley, senior director of product marketing at EMC, said the relationship of EMC's software to its hardware sales is a key ingredient.

For instance, Emsley cited EMC's Avamar data backup and recovery software with deduplication capabilities, which is the company's fastest-growing software. Solution providers can take Avamar to add deduplication capabilities to the 90 percent of customers of EMC storage hardware who have yet to implement the capacity-saving feature.

Emsley said EMC's Velocity partner program has really helped boost storage software sales through the channel as well.

It helps that EMC offers practically every software tool one could use, and does a thorough job of testing before coming to market. "It means their features may be a little slower to come to market," said Scott Hansen, sales manager for enterprise solutions at Melillo Consulting, Somerset, N.J. "But that's better for us."